Day: January 17, 2018

Silicon Valley is out for blood—and not just the rejuvenating blood of the young. Biomedical engineers are enthralled by the promise of liquid biopsies, noninvasive tests that detect and classify cancers by identifying the tiny bits of DNA that tumors shed into the bloodstream. Studies at leading cancer centers have already shown the technology’s effectiveness in personalizing treatments after diagnosis. Now startups are selling VCs a vision of cheap, surgery-free cancer screening even before symptoms appear.

Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures, Verily, and others have invested $77 million in Freenome, which uses machine learning to pinpoint immune-system responses that may indicate the presence of cancer. Freenome’s most prominent rival, Grail—which plans to harness next­-generation gene sequencing to directly measure cancerous genomic alterations in the blood—raised $1.2 billion last year from ARCH Venture Partners. Both companies are racing to make the first DNA-detecting blood test to reveal disease in its earliest stages. It’s the holy—well, you know—of cancer care.

Report: Stanford students drugged at on-campus frat party
Published on January 17, 2018 at 11:31PM by By Jenna Lyons
A handful of Stanford University students were reportedly drugged last week at an on-campus fraternity party.
Sigma Chi International Fraternity said in a statement Wednesday that there are allegations that “illegal substances were brought into an event by a non-member and provided to attendees without their knowledge.”
Students at the Sigma Chi party on Friday night experienced symptoms akin to using Benzodiazepines, colloquially known as “roofies,” and possibly the anxiety treatment medication Xanax, according to the Stanford Daily, the university’s student newspaper.

Project Fi Creates Its Own Version of An Unlimited Plan
Published on January 17, 2018 at 11:50PM
Google’s Project Fi mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) has launched a new feature called Bill Protection that will cap your $10 per GB data bill at $60 a month, while still allowing you to use as much data as you want, essentially creating its own version of an unlimited data plan. The Verge reports: Prior to today, Project Fi users were charged $10 per GB no matter how much data they used, which could become quite costly for heavy users. Bill Protection should help alleviate those worries for most users. Google says those who use up to 15GB of data in a month won’t experience any throttling, but if they cross that threshold — Google says less than 1 percent of its users pass that mark — they will “experience slower data” with speeds going down to 256kbps. If you don’t want to be throttled when youread more

Meteor Lights Up Southern Michigan
Published on January 17, 2018 at 11:10PM
New submitter Foundryman writes: Amidst fake missile reports in Hawaii and Japan, Michigan gets hit by something real. From a report via Ars Technica: “Early last night local time, a meteor rocketed through the skies of southern Michigan, giving local residents a dramatic (if brief) light show. It also generated an imperceptible thump, as the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that there was a coincident magnitude 2.0 earthquake. The American Meteor Society has collected more than 350 eyewitness accounts, which ranged from western Pennsylvania out to Illinois and Wisconsin. They were heavily concentrated over southern Michigan, notably around the Detroit area. A number of people have also posted videos of the fireball online. The American Meteor Society estimates that the rock was relatively slow-moving at a sedate 45,000km an hour. Combined with its productionread more

The so-called ‘Speed Update’ will only affect pages that ‘deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries,’ according to Google’s blog. While the search team was coy with exactly how this new factor will affect rankings, it did encourage developers to gauge their site’s performance (hint hint) using the Chrome User Experience Report, the automated tool Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights.

The update applies the same standard to all pages regardless of what tech it’s built with. And if it’s any consolation, relevance is still king: “The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content,’ according to Google’s post.

Meteor Lights Up Southern Michigan
Published on January 17, 2018 at 11:10PM
New submitter Foundryman writes: Amidst fake missile reports in Hawaii and Japan, Michigan gets hit by something real. From a report via Ars Technica: “Early last night local time, a meteor rocketed through the skies of southern Michigan, giving local residents a dramatic (if brief) light show. It also generated an imperceptible thump, as the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that there was a coincident magnitude 2.0 earthquake. The American Meteor Society has collected more than 350 eyewitness accounts, which ranged from western Pennsylvania out to Illinois and Wisconsin. They were heavily concentrated over southern Michigan, notably around the Detroit area. A number of people have also posted videos of the fireball online. The American Meteor Society estimates that the rock was relatively slow-moving at a sedate 45,000km an hour. Combined with its productionread more

Answered: My wife and I along with our 2 teenage daughters will be traveling from Paris to Frankfurt with 4 days in between. We are trying to plan some ideas for what to do between those two points. We will have just finished 10 days in London and Paris so… social experiment by Livio Acerbo #greengroundit #travel #tours